It seemed years since I had seen Zaton's or thrown the dice.

The old life, the old employments--should I ever go back to them ?--seemed dim and distant.
Would Cocheforet, the forest and the mountain, the grey Chateau and its mistresses, seem one day as dim?
And if one bit of life could fade so quickly at the unrolling of another, and seem in a moment pale and colourless, would all life some day and somewhere, and all the things we--But enough! I was growing foolish.

I sprang up and kicked the wood together, and, taking up the gun, began to pace to and fro under the cliff.

Strange that a little moonlight, a few stars, a breath of solitude should carry a man back to childhood and childish things.
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